


The Love That Comes With Light

by allofthefandoms



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Autistic Jack, Character Study, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7751824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofthefandoms/pseuds/allofthefandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is too intense,  too weird, too serious.  But it doesn’t stop Jack from orbiting the sun of Bitty’s smile, of riding the swell of a place that has unexpectedly become a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love That Comes With Light

**Author's Note:**

> So I was recently diagnosed with autism as an adult (I'm 23) and my therapist and I agree that a lot of my own anxiety and depression is related to not getting the support I needed as a child regarding being autistic. A post on my dash brought up autistic Jack and the seeds of this fic were born.
> 
> (Also, the blanket mentioned in this fic is actually a blanket that my gf got me that is my comfort object and really is the softest blanket ever.)

Kent got it.

The media training had worn away the awkwardness into bland routine, rote words that were comfortable and safe. They let eyes slip over him, let him be a flat blank face to write their stories on, but Kent, Kent got it. It didn’t matter that Jack hated looking him in the eyes, or that he’d talk for hours about the nuances of a slap shot or the battle tactics of German submarines during World War 2. Kent found him charming, sweet and kind. Kent didn’t laugh at how intense he was. Instead he rose to it, baring down himself until they were on a whole other level. It was the Parse-and-Zimms show, and for once Jack didn’t feel like a freak.

But then Kent begins to resent Jack’s refusal to go out, to drink and laugh and pretend he was interested in women. (Jack never told him that Kent was the only one Jack had ever looked at twice, man or woman. By the time they were talking again, it wasn’t true anyway.) He’d basked in the glow of thousands of Instagram followers, in the pretty girls who wanted his picture. Kent had liked fame where Jack didn’t and the fractures between them spidered out like cracks on a windshield, one stone away from catastrophic failure.

Kent got it until he didn’t. 

. .

“Your intake survey indicated Autism Spectrum Disorder Type 1. The delay in diagnosis is likely a source of your anxiety, even from childhood. Along with adjusting your medications, I’m going to refer you to a specialist focusing in autism in adults. Finding healthier methods to cope will likely relieve some of the stress you’re under.”

. .

Shitty forces himself into Jack’s space from the moment they meet, refusing to let him pull away, and it’s the best thing that had ever happened to him. It keeps the others from being too scared of him, to hold themselves at a distance. Jack is hopelessly stuck in his orbit, but it’s comfortable. Shitty not Kent. That’s apparent from the start. He’s a philosopher as well as a frat boy,

(The smell of booze still makes him dizzy, but instead of laughing when Jack goes pale at the prospect of a party, Shitty just buys him the softest blanket he can find and let’s Jack bury his face in it instead of going downstairs. It’s covered in hot pink R2D2s and smells faintly of weed, but every time Jack rubs it against his cheek it feels like home.) 

Bitty hates him. Of course.

Jack is too intense, too weird, too serious. But it doesn’t stop Jack from orbiting the sun of Bitty’s smile, of riding the swell of a place that has unexpectedly become a home. 

. .

His feet seem to echo deafeningly as he rushes up the stairs.

He’s flooded with the feeling he thought died with Kent, when he became Parson and not Kenny. But he has a chance to find something that makes him happy, that’s not obsession or fixation or coping. Bitty makes him feel like he’s on firm ground, like there is a retreat for him, a space where just being is enough.

(It’s a desperate relief after a life of trying to be everything for everyone but himself.)

And then Bitty is standing there, eyes wet and sad, and Jack knows. 

This is it. And when Bitty steps into his space, head tilted up in surprise and agonizing hopefulness, Jack knows. He’s found his feet, despite the odds. He can handle the weight of contract, of the pressure of being the prodigal son. His mind sharpens down to just the feeling of Bitty’s lips on his, soft and a little chapped from a winter in dry rinks. The kiss is warm and it would be so easy for Jack to lose himself in it and never come back.

But Bitty holds him fast.


End file.
